New Linux Look Fuels Old Debate

Efforts to bring glitzy new graphics to Linux are fueling an old conflict: Does proprietary software belong in open-source Linux? The issue involves software modules called drivers, which plug into the kernel at the heart of the open-source operating system. Drivers let software communicate with hardware such as network adapters, hard drives and video cards.

Consider this hypothetical doomsday scenario from the message that was linked in the article:

A serious security flaw is found in the 2.6 series, which turns out to be a design flaw in a key sysfs API. Fixing this flaw would require to break the module ABI and practically all modules out there, while not fixing this flaw leaves a potential roothole open. A quick fix

is made available under a CONFIG_ option, but users who need binary drivers have no choice but leave their systems vulnerable.

How cares? You will care if we end up depending on proprietary binary drivers that adversely restrict the open part of our open source world.

It has little to do with sandals and a lot to do with practicality. What happens when you need to use a device with closed-source drivers on a different architecture? There are a lot of FBSD users who are pissed that NVIDIA supports Linux/amd64, but not FreeBSD/amd64.

Beyond that, what happens when the drivers need to be modified to take advantage of new kernel infrastructure? You update the TCP/IP stack to be super fast, but need support in the driver, so what happens to closed source drivers you can’t modify? This is exactly what is happening to the DRI project. The DRI folks don’t have access to the driver source or hardware specs for modern ATI and NVIDIA hardware, so they are extremely limited in how easily they can develop technologies like DRI-EGL. Apple has driver source code to make the GPU play nice with Quartz Extreme, Microsoft has the source code to do the same for Avalon, but the open source folks can’t do the same for XGL.

In other words, we believe in freedom when it benefits us. When it’s inconvenient, we don’t believe in freedom. You may not agree, but those against proprietary software believe in principle, not convenience. Pragmatists believe in convenience, not principle. And everyone else compromises a little principle for convenience, and a little convenience for principle. Where you draw the line determines what you believe. In other words, ’nuff said is not enough.

Thanks. I didn’t realize you knew every single user in existence and can speak for them all. Btw, freedom does not equal politics, and I never even mentioned politics. If having principles equal politics, then I would agree that many people don’t have many politics. But I would still disagree with that position, and so do many kernel developers. Just because everyone else jumped off a bridge, doesn’t make it right. Sometimes it’s important to stick to your politics, and sometimes not. If you don’t understand that, then I guess you can always say, “’nuff said,” which seems silly after the next person posts.

“Refusing propietary drivers because they are not open source IS politics, whether you like it or not.”

Protecting freedom is NOT politics, it’s principle. How you persuade others to follow your principles is politics. I don’t see the kernel developers trying to convince anyone, just sticking to their ideas.

It’s nice how you think refusing proprietary drivers is politics, where allowing them is not. Twisted and manipulative, but nice. I guess you fell for the proprietary driver politics. You know, the one where owners of proprietary drivers say their way is the right way, and any other way is just politics.

“Its is politics because the desition of a few is affecting thousands, so thousands are hostages of the politic ideas of a few.”

I don’t agree that anyone is being a “hostage.” That’s just political talk. It’s THEIR kernel! They wrote it. They don’t want to be hostage to the proprietary vendors, like it has been mentioned before. Maybe you should think of it that way.

Again, politics is NVIDIA and ATI trying to convince people that their ideas are right and everyone else is wrong. You may not agree with the principles (that word again), but that’s what they are trying to do. THAT’s politics.

That said, there’s nothing illegal about using proprietary drivers with a GPL kernel…you just can’t redistribute it. So all we need is a script that checks for a Nvidia or ATI chip at install time, download the latest driver and sets it up automatically. That way you’re not distributing illegal kernels, and yet you allow users to make best of their hardware.

Meanwhile, I don’t believe ATI and/or Nvidia when they say that they can’t open-source their drivers for competitive reasons…it’s the cost/performance ratio that makes the card, and not the drivers. Now, if they use some licensed technology, then it makes more sense, but the least they could do is reveal what licensed code they use, so the community could try to provide open alternatives.

That’s irrelevant to the discussion. No one’s going to say that Mac OSX is “not ready for the desktop” or that it “privileges politics over ease-of-use”, and yet its market share is roughly the same as that of Linux.

I never said catering to the majority of users WILL gain you marketshare.

Catering to the majority means a lot of things, and one issue is providing a better experience out of the box (do you want to argue that not having propietary drivers available because of principle is a better user experience?) by allowing propietary drivers. That’s perfectly relevant.

Catering to the majority means a lot of things, and one issue is providing a better experience out of the box (do you want to argue that not having propietary drivers available because of principle is a better user experience?) by allowing propietary drivers.

Are you claiming that Windows supports proprietary drivers out of the box? Because it doesn’t, and that’s why your comment was not relevant.

Let me repeat this: neither Linux nor Windows support NVIDIA/ATI proprietary drivers out-of-the-box, therefore this is irrelevant as a measure of general popularity and market share.

As I said, you’re confusing the issues. This isn’t about popularity (because we’ve already established that this is irrelevant), it’s about the legality/desirability of having proprietary drivers distributed with the Linux kernel, and (for a small minority) of having those drivers being used with the kernel in the first place.

I didn’t say anything about Windows. I said Linux should provide a better experience, and it can. Better than Windows even. But politics stops it.

No, they don’t. Proprietary drivers are available for Linux. The vast majority of Linux users are using them. Some people don’t want to use them? Fine, it’s their choice, they’re not influencing users not to (or to drop Linux because they have chosen to use proprietary drivers).

The kernel unfortunately can’t legally be distributed with them – it’s a legal issue, not a political one. It’s not politics that keeps Linux growth to a slow pace, but user inertia (that also hurts OS X, btw). It seems to me that you’re trying to add fuel to the flame, here.

“Their own doing”…who is this “they” you’re referring to…all the Linux kernel contributors? Are you trying to turn this into a anti/pro-GPL flamewar as well?

In any case that’s irrelevant and off-topic, as have been most of your posts. The fact is that NVIDIA/ATI drivers are ALSO not included with Windows, for different but similar legal reasons that are, obviously, of Microsoft’s “own doing” – that’s called copyright law, by the way.

So, in Linux as in Windows, you have to install the drivers separately. “OEMs do it” is not a valid argument, as one would have to compare OEM Linux PCs with NVIDIA/ATI hardware, and as far as I know these don’t exist…

So, really, there’s little difference between Linux and Windows on that point. Please stop trying to turn this into a flamewar and stay on-topic.

You are talking that the Open Source brings a freedom… OK, I could agree with you. However your statement is flawed (it is buggy by design :-)):

-freedom means not to apply restriction, consequently freedom cannot be due to principles, since they curb the same freedom to predefined dogmas. This kind of “freedom” resembles more a religion fanatism. Principles are not a freedom, but convenience is. This convenience enables people to be free in their choice, to opt OpenSoeurce software if it is better (when it is) or to choose a proprietary software.

Pragmatism is not evil, it is the real freedom. So people do not live for the sake of software, people want to use software for their purposes.

So I think the blind strive for free software and open source in everything and everywhere locks in this community with a intransigent aversion to everything good and favoring for users that are found in non-OpenSource World.

Sorry, but I can’t agree with your statement. Beside the (in principal desireable, but very hard to achieve on large scales) state of an anarchy (in the original sense of meaning), most systems try to preserve their freedoms by putting restrictions in front of things, that could harm this freedoms.

It’s convenient to rob a bank, if you don’t have money, but (this is just an educated guess, mind you) most people won’t tolerate this, since it interferes with their own freedom (e.g. to have money in this bank or banks in general).

This is of course a silly, simple example. But it should illustrate, that most people seem to be able to live with a limited set of restrictions, that helps to prevail basic freedoms. It can get difficult to draw the line what rules are necessary to prevail the freedom of the people within a system (simply because the definition of freedom can differ), compared to when rules get too tight.

With respect to the Linux kernels policy regarding closed source kernel modules, this is a restriction I can both understand and live well with, since the license the kernel is distrubuted (exclusively, I might add) under rules this possibility out. If my memory serves me right, the first license the linux kernel was distributed under was more restrictive than the GPL, so with the GPL (and it’s restrictions), they settled for the license they (= the kernel creators) thought to fit their needs and goals best. If you do not agree with their findings, you have several options left :

You are entitled to try to build something similar yourself, because it’s not (despite the things some people might try to convince you) illegal to develope your onw OS kernel in most countries. You also have (as in theaters or cinemas) the right to leave, if what you see doesn’t pleases you. In most cases however, you are not entitled to get your money back, if you leave five minutes before the film ends.

Regards

PS:

If someone probably tries to wind up one of this lame “which one is more free, the GPL or the BSD license?” discussions most of us seem to be already sick of : Please, don’t turn this into one !

(To put it short and simple : I’m a GPL guy and *I* find what is commonly refered to be the BSD license and the GPL license to be equally free, since they both provide the same four freedoms, which is the reason, why the BSD is one way compatible with the GPL. The BSD is less restrictive, which I find somehow problematic in the light of aboves statements, and that’s one of the reasons, why I prefer the GPL)

Using proprietary drivers sort of defeats the purpose of having a free software operating system in the first place. Proprietary drivers would be a great short term fix. I would love to not have to futz around with X.org to get my creaky old Radeon working properly every time I upgrade my system. In the long term though, it leads to the same problems that exisited which precipitated the founding of the GNU project, and the FSF, as well as creating some interesting new ones.

I understand that both Nvidia and ATI are trying to protect their intellectual property (I feel dirty just typing that), and agree with their stances to some extent. But, the reality is is that these drivers are running deep in the GPL’ed kernel territory – which is exactly where they should not be if they are proprietary and not free software.

Maybe the answer is to provide some sort of userland driver functionality for proprietary drivers. Keep them out of the kernel, and thus they stay proprietary. Granted, there will likely be some performance issues compared to using kernel drivers, but it’s the best of both worlds. The GPL purists are happy that the code is not in the kernel (although still not thrilled about the existense of proprietary drivers), and the respective companies get to protect their whatever.

Besides, the ATI and Nvidia proprietary drivers, frankly, are not that great. I will grant you that as far as 3d acceleration goes they blow the pants of the drivers that come with a standard Linux distro, but they can be buggy, are slow to support brand spanking new hardware, and generally don’t support older video cards either.

To add extras point, both ATI and Nvidia will overwrite the GLX that will cause problem on some distros. Even Nvidia themsleves advisers users to get the modified version that fits their distros. It is worth to read the reason on

Addendum: anyone care to explain why there is no mention of kernel modules that mostly suit proprietary companies? Also, modular X already provide a better way to implement the 3D driver which is perfectly works great on my Fedora Core 5.

The reason why proprietary drivers are not installed are mostly legal and political issues depending of the countries. Like a posters mentionned, the philosophies of some distros (Fedora in my case) don’t allow them to ship closed source drivers by default in order to avoid facing lawsuits.

Using proprietary drivers sort of defeats the purpose of having a free software operating system in the first place.

Care to explain to me how my using proprietary drivers defeats my purposes for using a FOSS opererating system? Perhaps your purposes for doing so are not the same as everyone else’s, eh?

But, the reality is is that these drivers are running deep in the GPL’ed kernel territory – which is exactly where they should not be if they are proprietary and not free software.

That’s not for you to say. That’s not for me to say. It’s most certainly not for RMS to say. They only people with a legitimate say are those who have contributed code to the Linux kernel, and those who have contributed have done so under explicit licensing terms which are a far sight more hospitable to proprietary drivers than you seem to be.

“Care to explain to me how my using proprietary drivers defeats my purposes for using a FOSS opererating system?”

Certainly , your a user , if you feel the proprietary driver are lacking , feel free to make them.

“Perhaps your purposes for doing so are not the same as everyone else’s, eh?”

The only one stopping proprietary driver in GNU/Linux is you , its not like anyone as stopped you from making them ? You just cant legally include them in th kernel , but feel free to contribute proprietary module that connect to it.

“That’s not for you to say.”

Your right its the GPL that say so.

“They only people with a legitimate say are those who have contributed code to the Linux kernel”

Legally , no , they have to comply with the GPL.

“and those who have contributed have done so under explicit licensing terms which are a far sight more hospitable to proprietary drivers than you seem to be.”

Certainly , your a user , if you feel the proprietary driver are lacking , feel free to make them.

Huh? Whatever are you talking about? This article and the ensuing discussion doesn’t concern the availability of proprietary drivers, but the the ethics of using the ones that already exist.

The only one stopping proprietary driver in GNU/Linux is you

You seem to have seriously misunderstood my comment. I’m not complaining about a percieved lack of proprietary drivers. Truth be known, I’m very much in favor of using FOSS drivers wherever possible. What I do have a problem with is those who claim that using proprietary drivers is somehow an ethically suspect behavior (the subject of the article).

Legally , no , they have to comply with the GPL

The Linux kernel is licensed under a modified GPL, which has the effect of making it more hospitable to proprietary drivers than it would be if released under a plain vanilla GPL.

>>Care to explain to me how my using proprietary drivers defeats my purposes for using a FOSS opererating system?<<

It doesn’t defeat your purposes, and I didn’t mean to imply that it defeated your purposes. You are free to do whatever you like with your installation of Linux. That is the beauty of free software.

My statements were about proprietary drivers in general, not how someone such as yourself may use them.

Look at it this way – if ATI or Nvidia were to ship a version of the Linux kernel with their proprietary drivers built in, and not offer the source to the modifications that they made – would that be OK? Or would it be in violation of the GPL? Offering binary modules that operate in kernel space really is no different, as far as I see it.

>>Perhaps your purposes for doing so are not the same as everyone else’s, eh?<<

Agreed, they should keep core of their open source drivers in userspace form, much like the current DRI architecture, and interoperate with kernel userspace DRM ABI.

Problem would be a DRM kernel gfx-card driver (“miniport” in windows terms), but it’s much lesser problem for them to open source relatively small part of their code. Maybe with transition to Longhorn driver model (which is similar concept as DRI) both ATI/NVIDIA will rethink their philosophy.

However, much work (and willingness of the hardware makers) is required to improve DRM ABI/API to the feature level that would satisfy both big companies, and it still isn’t guaranteed they will cooperate. Maybe borrowing few ideas from Microsoft’s new model would be helpful. Or waiting for Linux to become more present on desktop, so companies will beg for cooperation.

OT:In fact much of the new windows driver model will shift things to userspace, linux could have short-term “benefits” of those with help of various wrappers (though this will harm native kernel drivers in long term).

About the ibGL problem, Mesa developers tried recently to enhance dispatch tables in libGL. Maybe nvidia/ati will use that feature and avoid overwriting it in the future, but I take that with a grain of salt.

Linux distros should include non-open source files.The users get 3d acceleration,MP3 support,and other features out of the box,and the developers can concentrate inproving the open-source parts.

And I assume that you are willing to pay for Fedora/Debian/SUSE/-insert name here- defense, if Mr. Fraunhofer (http://www.mp3licensing.com/) decides to sue Fedoa/Debian/SUSE/-insert name here- for illegally distributing patented codecs?

It’s much easier to shout “give us closed source binary drivers and illegal media codecs” when you are -not- the one paying for it. (Or in closed source driver’s case, having to deal with closed source drivers causing huge amount of problems – read: 4K stacks on earlier nVidia drivers)

If linux is all about freedom of choice, I want the choice to use my hardware as the developer intended even if it means closed source drivers. I believe it is very pig-headed and hypocritical for any kernel developers who try to impede the efforts of manufactures to make closed drivers for linux while they run about touting “choice” and “openess”. It’s not a very open system if they only allow “It’s our way or the highway.”

Besides isn’t it about what I do with “MY PC”? What business is it of theres if I “choose” to use proprietary binary drivers. It’s my choice. When they start dictating what I can and cannot use on my system, then how are they any better than the other camp, MS?

If linux is all about freedom of choice, I want the choice to use my hardware as the developer intended even if it means closed source drivers. I believe it is very pig-headed and hypocritical for any kernel developers who try to impede the efforts of manufactures to make closed drivers for linux while they run about touting “choice” and “openess”. It’s not a very open system if they only allow “It’s our way or the highway.”

Besides isn’t it about what I do with “MY PC”? What business is it of theres if I “choose” to use proprietary binary drivers. It’s my choice. When they start dictating what I can and cannot use on my system, then how are they any better than the other camp, MS?

Besides isn’t it about what I do with “MY PC”? What business is it of theres if I “choose” to use proprietary binary drivers. It’s my choice. When they start dictating what I can and cannot use on my system, then how are they any better than the other camp, MS?

You can do what you want with your PC. This restricts proprietary vendors from impeding on your freedom, not your freedom to do what you want.

Going on a little tangent, freedom is not always about the right to choose. It’s about rights and responsibilities. I can’t choose to sell my vote. So when people always talk about right to choose, some times you have to remember that it’s about responsibilities of protecting the freedom of the kernel instead.

I conditionally agree with you. I find it really difficult to swallow that a group can proclaim that Linux is open and free, as well as chant one of the most attractive things is that you can customise the system if it doesn’t do exactly what you want, but then be so against allowing people the choice of adopting non-free or non-open software.

It really seems to be a contradiction of mindsets.

I do think however that compiling the drivers directly into the kernel would be a confusion of licensing and IP but that shouldn’t prohibit people loading the drivers as a seperate entity.

It seems to me that in this particular instance the adoption of Linux distributions is being (or could be) hampered by the bothering of upholding to the strictest degree of what some believe Linux is about.

I guess that’s also the point. If Linux is meant to be so open and free (from constraint) then why on earth would you want to restrict people from being able to experience it to the fullest?

Exactly, linux is about choice, you choose to use proprietary software or not.

People with an absolute believe that proprietary is evil should turn off their pc right now because i’m sure their processor is a proprietary piece of hardware and so is about every other component of their pc.

They should build their own stuff and make the blueprints of their work open source.

Well goodby proprietary haters, see you in about three hundred years when you finished your 1Mhz pc.

Proprietary software is completely different than proprietary hardware. You can’t change a CPU like you can change a piece of software so let’s compare apples to apples otherwise there’s no sense making the effort to prove anything. Anyway what exactly is proprietary in my computer? Ok maybe the way it moves bits around in the CPU and down the busses but the instruction set is the same on my Intel machine as it is on my AMD. I can do exactly the same things on both. My PCI bus isn’t proprietary. A lot of hardware is comitee designed so everyone can play fair, that’s not the case in software.

As for your second point there are already lots of open source cores out there. http://opensparc.sunsource.net/nonav/index.html is an example of a program sun has to get developers on board and help address CPU design issues. These run much faster than 1mhz. Designing a CPU isn’t voodoo, one can have enough understanding to design a basic MIPS-Lite CPU(No FPU, no pipelining, basic branching) and run in on a simulator even before finishing a degree in computer engineering or comp sci. It’s not easy and not every student it able to but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

It’s very difficult to explain why having source code is important to people who really don’t know anything about computers other than Windows XP tweaks. You just don’t see all the issues maintaining one binary that runs on multiple systems. You don’t see the headaches of maintaining binary compatability.

nvidia drivers are designed in a commitee of different graphics cards manufacturers who come to a common consensus about the architecture and the interface of the technology??

I’d think not. So putting a big binary blob in a kernel is a good idea even if you (not you, Chris, a general you for developers) don’t really know how it works and what else it might do besides the stuff on the feature list.

Don’t just think of yourself (yes, you Chris). Think of the people that have maintain and integrate blobs and an interface for them while working voluntarily on the Linux kernel.

You see when it comes to hardware as such there are industry standard design guidelines. No motherboard manufacturer will modify the PCI bus on their own and ship the motherboard out. They follow a set of specifications.

Now if graphics cards manufacturers provided specs for and INTERFACE alone and not the drivers, dvelopers’ lives would be made really easy and it would ensure better integration and support for their cards.

* Closed source drivers are only usuable as long as the vendor maintains them. If the vendor stops maintaining it (either because it goes out of business or it wants you to upgrade your device) you’re out of luck

If you choosed hardware that was not made for GNU/Linux , you only have yourself to blame , there is no one stopping you or the vendor from making proprietary driver that connect to GNU/Linux , dont wait for it from the GPL camp ask or pay your vendor or proprietary developper for them.

atleast I can be assured that Nevada Build 35 won’t break my Nvidia driver that was designed for Nevada build 22 – unlike Linux 2.6.16 totally broke my Nvidia driver – i get some kind of rseg not found error.

This is one battle the fundamentalist are going to loose. At some point proprietary drivers for Graphics, and Networking, will be unavoidable, becuase IP is growing stronger by the day around the world. Intel is a maveric in this issue, but one has to wonder if they’ll maintain their current possition once their cards reach true competitiveness with the likes of NVIDIA and ATI. Their networking drivers are already proprietary, but they do seem committed to providing Linux support which is a good thing.

The truth here is that it all comes down to money and none of these companies that are making money selling their cards and the drivers required to use them are interesting in the grand idea of free and open for all, becuase competiton has a way of reducing profits. At some point the survival of Linux is going to come down to this very battle, and It’s my belief that the purist will loose. I can feal the flames already from that comment.

While I agree with you as concerns video drivers, I think the situation is quite different as concerns networking hardware. In the late 90’s it was still a real question whether or not common server class hardware such as NIC cards, DLT tape drives, or RAID controllers could even be made to work with Linux at all. Today, it’s rarely issue. Most high end server class hardware just plain works without any issues because, from a business perspective, it’s simply not possible exclude the Linux market if your selling server class hardware; Linux simply commands too much of that market to ignore.

Things stand rather differently with video cards, which are sold into the “desktop” market where Linux has a vastly smaller install base than it does in servers. But even putting aside the issues pertaining to market share, video drivers have a hell of a lot more “secret sauce” loaded into their software drivers than do things like NIC cards.

Your probably right about the Networking cards, but I know a lot of people wish there were native drivers availible for many network cards, instead off having to use NDiswrapper. Intel seems to be very commited to providing native drivers for all of their cards, but how many other companies have drivers (especially wireless) that are readily availible.

We all know that combining proprietary and Open software is the real solution, so why can’t people just except it and move on. I don’t need an open NVIDIA driver, as long as they’re commited to providing one. I love that the Intel drivers are open and if NVIDIA and intel stop supporting Linux, then I’ll just buy an Intel card. Sure, it would be nice if they provided specs about the hardware, but if you had a multimillion dollar design in your home, how willing would you be to tell everyone about it, knowing that some of the people your telling have the know how to build their own, and profit from it.

Ahhh…yes; wireless cards. I sometimes forget wireless support is so dodgy in Linux (I use an IBM ThinkPad which uses the Intel chipset). I think this falls squarely in the market size issue. There’s really nothing special worth protecting in a wireless driver. In fact, for all of the brands of wireless gear out there, almost all of them use chipsets from a small handful of providers. It’ll come eventually; until then reward those manufacturers who use Linux friendly components.

I don’t think open source drivers will ever appear from ATI and NVidia due to the patent issues etc.

What would be much better IMHO would be decent technical documentation for the cards, so that the talented Xorg(/kernel?) devs could write decent open source drivers, instead of having to reverse engineer them.

Nobody owes you a freeking thing. Given that these tecnologies are proprietary, how is anyone supposed to provide them in an OS that by definition was created to circumvent any attempt at stop the free sharing of software code?

You folks simply do not understand the foundations of the free software movement. If you don’t like what the software stands for, don’t use it.

Which brings me to my point: it’s about user expectations, not hardware support.

Mac user’s don’t expect their Mac to support every periphereal under the sun, so why should Linux users expect the same? I surmise that actual Linux users don’t actually, that point of view is one that is usually espoused by Windows users when giving reasons for why they won’t switch to Linux. Which, for what it’s worth, I consider to be a perfectly valid reason.

It’s not a lack of hardware support which holding back Linux on the desktop, but the expectation of some potential users that Linux be a seemless drop in replacement for Windows.

It’s not a lack of hardware support which holding back Linux on the desktop, but the expectation of some potential users that Linux be a seemless drop in replacement for Windows.

And where does the blame lie?

Linux hardware support is good, I won’t argue that. But this is a roadblock that is hurting it. It could gain a leg on Microsoft if the leaders weren’t so adament about everything being “pure” and “Free”.

It could gain a leg on Microsoft if the leaders weren’t so adament about everything being “pure” and “Free”.

That’s the point, though, they aren’t (whoever those “leaders” are…)

As I’ve indicated in my previous post, this has NOTHING to do with market share. I don’t know of a single person who’s told me: “yeah, I would use Linux, but the NVIDIA/ATI drivers aren’t installed by default.”

No, but imagine a computer illiterate person installing a Linux distro for the first time. The default drivers are pretty weak and he doesn’t know how to install drivers. So he tries the distro, and notices the desktop isn’t as responsive and not as smooth as on Windows. So he uninstalls it because he got a bad first impression.

No, but imagine a computer illiterate person installing a Linux distro for the first time. The default drivers are pretty weak and he doesn’t know how to install drivers. So he tries the distro, and notices the desktop isn’t as responsive and not as smooth as on Windows. So he uninstalls it because he got a bad first impression.

The 2D open-source drivers for NVIDIA/ATI are quite responsive, they just don’t provide 3D support, so your example does not apply. If you meant to talk about 3D support, well then you’ll have to consider that Windows does not support 3D out-of-the-box for these cards.

It happens.

Just because you have stated this as an hypothesis doesn’t mean it happens to any significant degree. We could talk all night using hypothetical scenarios, but yet we wouldn’t have any proof that this is a significant factor in desktop adoption/retention.

In the meantime, this is off-topic, as desktop adoption/retention is not the subject of the debate here. Please stay on-topic.

It could gain a leg on Microsoft if the leaders weren’t so adament about everything being “pure” and “Free”.

Well, given that there are some rather loud and obnoxious detractors, I don’t see a lot real resistance to Nvidia and ATI out there. The Xorg team, for instance, works quite closely with both manufacturers.

That said, I think the way forward for Linux desktops is to push Linux’s strengths rather than trying create a Windows work-a-like. Linux desktops make sense in some, but by no means all, corporate environments where the desktops are all centrally managed. Linux really begins to make sense in a thin client environment. I use Linux on my home computer, but I really fail to see the sense in pushing Linux as general purpose consumer OS. I say let MS and Apple fight over that space. It has razor thin margins and it’s a support nightmare as well.

That’s not a fair comparison. Save for USB and firewire devices, Macs by design support a very small minority of hardware. In limiting supported hardware, Mac can assure the quality of that hardware’s support for the OS.

That was my point. I wasn’t claiming Linux is better because it supports far more hardware than a Mac. I only wanted to demonstrate that lack of harware support isn’t really the problem with Linux desktops, it’s the expectations on the part of some potential users that Linux absolutely must support every single random periphereal supported by Windows in order to be a viable replacement. Mac users don’t have that expectation and neither should Linux users.

Dedicated hardwares customized by Apple to be specific. Try to install OS X on a plain PC (say equipped with a AMD Athlon64 3200 with other motherboard manufacturer) and come back with a fully dedicated article.

You’re not making a logical argument. If you remove a road block to a larger market share, then logically market share would increase. Also, since Windows also has this “road block”, it should be affected by it – and yet it isn’t.

Finally, you should provide empirical evidence (not fictional scenarios) to support your hypothesis, i.e. that the fact that NVIDIA and ATI are choosing to keep their drivers proprietary is slowing down Linux adoption, because I’m simply not buying it.

You were talking about “hardware support out of box” which I pointed out those hardwares are supported/customized for Apple system. I took plain PC example to show you that your statement does not apply outside Apple hardware support.

I have seen Fedora, Yellow Dog and Ubuntu running smoothly on Apple system minus wireless (manufacturers problem) displaying better portability of Linux (kernel) than Apple own’s.

Correct, but OEM computers and dvd drives tend to come with DVD software. Just plop the CD/DVD in, install it, and you’re good to go. Everyone knows how to put a CD/DVD in and click a few buttons.

Windows cannot edit MS Word files out of the box.

Windows cannot edit MS Excel files out of the box.

It can read/write rtf files if a home user needs basic stuff.

Windows does not have full drivers for Nvidia or Ati out of the box.

No, but any OEM computers with ATI/Nvidia cards will have the drivers preinstalled. If you buy a card and install it yourself, you get the drivers on a CD/DVD and just pop the CD/DVD in and you’re good to go.

Either you didn’t aware or were being ingorant, when you buy ATI/Nvidia card, there is also windows driver CD in the box. But for linux driver, often you must download it yourself and hack the kernel to load the driver.

Either you didn’t aware or were being ingorant, when you buy ATI/Nvidia card, there is also windows driver CD in the box.

Windows CD does not include hardware accelarated driver (3D graphic for other people) from either ATI and Nvidia. You will have to download them to enable these features so this is no diffrent from some Linux distros.

But for linux driver, often you must download it yourself and hack the kernel to load the driver.

Many linux distros have a repository to get these kind of drivers (Universe for Ubuntu, Livna for Fedora) that users can enable. Commercial distros such as Mandriva, Xandros and SUSE include them in their medias.

I don’t care about ‘the foundations of the <insert poetry here> movement’. I want the best linux experience out of the box. Period. If this can be achieved by using proprietary software (like PC-BSD seems to do), then just do it! You still live in a dream world. Wake up! Linux is not a hacker’s OS anymore and the end user doesn’t care about the opensource poetry…

I don’t care about ‘the foundations of the (insert poetry here) movement’. I want the best linux experience out of the box. Period. If this can be achieved by using proprietary software (like PC-BSD seems to do), then just do it! You still live in a dream world. Wake up! Linux is not a hacker’s OS anymore and the end user doesn’t care about the opensource poetry…

Yeah, well..

I don’t care about ‘the foundations of (insert profit motive here) theory’. I want the best Windows experience out of the box. Period. If this can be achieved by giving away the OS for free (like some OS’s seem to do), then just do it! You still live in a dream world. Wake up! Windows is not a rich persons OS anymore and the end user doesn’t care about capitalist ideals…

The second paragraph is only as silly as the first. MS could give away Windows for free and gain lots of users, but then they don’t make any money which is their objective. Linux could include all kinds of proprietary stuff and gain lots of users, but then it wouldn’t be Free, which is it’s objective. What would be it’s purpose? Remember that thing called Unix? Is that what you want? Because the only reason we have alternatives to Unix in the *nix world is becasue of the opensource poetry…

GPL’d software is obviously not for you. And before I’m labeled an open source zealot I’ll state that I myself use proprietary graphics drivers. But I don’t shit on the ideals of the movement that got me this whole Free OS in the first place.

Linux is not now, nor has it ever been, an FSF/GNU project. Linus has always very clear that he orginally choose to license Linux under the GPL for primarily pragmatic reasons, and not as an endorsement of the larger philosophical and ethical stands taken by RMS and company. In fact, Linus barely even tries anymore to hide his contempt for RMS.

Linux doesn’t stand for what you seem to believe it does and if you can’t reconcile yourself with that fact, then it is you who should be seeking alternatives. I hear that the HURD project is looking for some users.

Sorry to burst your bubble but FSF stand for free software foundation which mean that GNU/Linux the OS and Linux the kernel is part of it by beeing free software.

Sorry to burst your bubble again but GNU/Linux the OS and Linux the kernel are both part of the GNU project because the GNU project is an **idea** to make a free UNIX system.

GNU/Linux and Linux stand for free software and the free software movement , your delusionnal if you think otherwise and its a shame that you have to be reminded of it , again , Linus may disagree with RMS on detail , but last I looked , Linus still do is work under the GPL and RMS still continue to work on making GNU a reality and work at making the FSF relevant everyday.

Just so you know the Linux kernel is also dual licensed , because since you dont know anything at all you do not know that previous to behing GPL the Linux kernel was under another License , hence the GNU/Linux also is to differentiate from the previous license.

Lets not forget that Linux and Hurd are not the only two kernel in existance for GNU … but then again you did not knew that either.

Its GPL , you are GPL your part of the GNU Idea , the FSF is the free software foundation they give funds and legal advice when you help build free software and correct the GPL license when the laws change , they dont just control it , they own it entirely.

Now , its really simple , even you should have gotten it by now , you dont whant to be part of the GNU idea dont use the GPL at all , stay away from it , dont use its software either. Dont discuss it , dont mention it.

You guys have a problem with laws and idea , laws changes and idea are adaptable , Linus never tought is toy would be like this today , RMS never tought GNU would be like this today either.

Its the license that control everything. The GPL is worst then the mafia , when you die you get out of the mafia , when you use the GPL , even if your dead or whant out the software stay GPL.

You dont know what your talking about and have nothing to say that need me wasting more time then what I already answered.

– The GPL is a software license , its the most widely used free software license in existance. Thanks for saying I have any influence on it , its tottaly delusionnal and wrong on your part but none the less I take it as a compliment and find it flathering.

cr8dle2grave , your problem beside behing a coward who is ahsame of is real name and of his ancestors , is that you dont know what you discuss or offer a single real fact.

To be coherent is to understand and know the subject , you do neither. GNU/Linux would not be where it is today without the GPL , The GNU idea would not be where it is today if it where not for the Linux kernel.

Hence its GNU/Linux , alone they are nothing , togheter they are everything.

“all they have to do is interface with the kernel.. So who cares as long as my hardware works. The sandle wearers can have their 2d graphics.”

-> Amen

Take this principle a bit further & proprietary software shouldnt be allowed to run on Linux because it spreads bad karma .

Companies want to make money & dont want to give away years of work by making their software open-source.

Linux is about diversity & openess ?

Let people do what they want .

Linux is not going to get far without proprietary software & drivers because these companies are not going to throw their work away just to seem FOSS friendly .

Its a good way for them to get their work into the kernel (e.g. whatever the cluster filesystem is called) but xcept that if they dont have enough rescources to develop the driver/s themselves they dont really have a big reason to free & open source their work .

Who wants to give away their house or flat for free because its good for the community ?

Like all things there needs to be a fundalmental balance between it all, at end of day you will get purist of both side of the spectrum. There are people are ATI and Nvidia do need to make a living a feed the family as much as people on open source. If people have a problem with properity software, why buy a properity card? If you think about it your still paying for the software on the card so if you want to be “so pure” get an open hardware card (if there is such thing).

What i find most amusing is there is people who cant stand this proriety stuff but in some instances they will happy break legal law in order to have “free” support for that proriety format. MP3s, DVDS, movies etc etc are all properity formats. Throw away your TV, don’t go to the cinema, don’t play Halo because its all properity or made on properity. yes there are purist out there who never touch such things because of the properity nature, get themself into a religious free software starvation of software way of life. Hey if you choose it thats fine. But you do pay for the format with all the money we spend on software I have no problem with mixing free with properity. I do understand people want to make a stand but to I wonder how many people use the “Free” software for the coding or because its “free and i dont wont to give Bill anymore of my money”? very few people of the free software movement actually tinker with the code. Use it if you want it, just don’t stop the rest of us following are “properity” movement if we choose too. Don’t get me wrong I use both free and source software and like it, some of the tools i use i prefer to the “expensive”counterpart. But there is also other tools I use that cost more money but i use it because it does the job better, we need balance here people.

The problem was the compromise made for Open Source graphic driver at the start instead of building the GPL ones.

The Proprietary company already provide some support but in absence of real competition they see no need to make a better offer or timely one.

There is also a problem of catch 22 , people buy there graphic hardware product from those graphic OEM vendor that support windows , there is actually zero graphich resaller vendor from ATI and Nvidia that do say they support financially or in driver the GNU/Linux platform. In other words buying that BFG or Powercolor or Asus card , etc … only serve to pay for Windows continuing support.

There is also a lack of interest from the richer GNU/Linux player ( Red Hat , Novell ) to support it because its not GPL and 3D driver are not really needed for corporate desktop either.

Remember in 1990 there was no GNU/Linux , if it exist today its because FSF and Free software people paid and developped for it in the first place and because it was GPL , otherwise it would be the same as all the other who are just fringe OS or extinct.

As long as there is no dedicated company or project to solve the problem with a GPL solution all the others will only do lip service for it or deliver when they feel like it.

Intel has new plans for its open-source graphics driver work, … “It’s not released yet,” he said.

It seems the two most popular graphics card manufactureres are nVidia and ATI. There are a whole bunch of others, but I’m not aware if you can buy an Intel graphics card. But if they come out with a decent card and a good GPL’d driver, the whole F/OSS world would flock to them. Do it, Intel!

The Intel i810 driver is open source and supports 3d acceleration on their more recent chipsets. That said, Intels video chipsets are not competitive with those from ATI/NVIDIA. But if you’re not a gamer they’re more than adequate for most people’s purposes.

I think there are also some technical questions. Mainly around the quality of the drivers.

The drivers in linux’ source tree can be vouched for, and if they have issues Linux gets blaimed rightly: It supports them, some better then others.

However, when you load up proprietary drivers and they cause issues. Well, Linux will get blaimed.

Remember WinME? Microsoft made the grave mistake of not using the same driver interfaces and Win98 drivers weren’t always a correct fit. Guess what. Companies labelled their Win98 drivers as ME anyway (sometimes) and people thought ME was just ridiculously unstable. In reality, there just wasn’t much properly supported hardware…

So by keeping only FOSS drivers and the highest quality proprietary drivers by having the current barriers to closed development Linux is successfully avoiding a bad rep for half-done drivers. Not that there aren’t any half done drivers out there, but usually they’re at least stable.

I don’t think Linux should go too far in making it easy to ship closed drivers. If they want their drivers on Linux they can open them, or write wrappers. If they do the first we can fix it, if they do the second they’ve put in a major commitment to the driver!

If a user complains about software zzz, and gives hardware information including hardware x, to developer y, info on hardware and x is looked at by developer y. After a few days y notices that there is a problem in hardware x, but company of x is out of business and someone else ownes the ip. The ip owner of x doesnt want to release new drivers since it doesnt make any business sense, and the person with the buggy drivers has to live with the bug or buy new hardware. See the problem yet.

If we start to rely on closed source drivers things like this will start to happen.

Nvidia and ATI should protect their IPs. If you want an open-source implementation of a 3d video card then: Make a video card, write the needed software and be happy. Of course having to deal with all sorts of patents and legal mojo could hinder the road to freedom.

Why dont you actualy try and use ati drivers before posting. ati shouldnt have a right to develop drivers any more. If you have used their(ati) drivers you would know that open source 2d drivers are 10x better at being stable than anything ati has or has had. I would go off and list 30 problems alone with ati drivers, but I will spare you from the list. Just to name one problem, well my card would hard lock some times when logging out of gnome(doesnt happen with open source or nvidia drivers).

I am not seriously saying ati shouldnt be developing drivers, but in no way should they ever be included with the kernel.

Their competitive edge(s) has little to do with open or closed interfaces. In fact, they would probably gain substantially just based on PR of having open specs/drivers.

Chances are very good ATi and nVidia each infringe on each others’ patents and trade secrets, and those of Intel, SiS, and VIA; and they each know it. They will not risk openning their stuff up and getting sued. If that were not a risk, I imagine we’d have open drivers.

However, it would be nice if they created an interface to the hardware that hid that stuff, yet still allowed them to publish enough info for a good open driver to be created.

I use Debian. Occasionally I’ll grab something from non-free such as the non-free-flash installer. I installed the latter because my wife is a medical student, and she was required to watch some flash dissection videos for school.

But I NEVER want any non-free stuff in my kernel. It’s a horrible, slippery slope. Once you tell vendors that it’s OK for them to write binary-only linux drivers, you get locked into only using certain kernel versions to satisfy dependencies. Companies also then think it’s OK to not provide source, and so you never get source.

Everyone in the community should put their feet down and say “NO, we only accept open-source in the kernel.” In the long-run it will give us better hardware support in the kernel because vendors will be forced to open-source their drivers for business reasons.

I tried the binary-only rtl8180 driver for the 2.4.18 kernel when it first came out. AWFUL. It was unstable, it would crash my otherwise-very-stable kernel sometimes. And it was impossible to work with it — you had to just hope that Realtek would fix it (they never did, but now there are open source drivers).

So think twice before you say, “OOHHH.. I don’t care! Give me binary-only so I can use my shiny new nvidia card.” We should instead say, “No, I won’t buy nvidia until they release an open-source card” because that is the only way to put pressure on vendors to provide real support for their hardware in linux.

We should instead say, “No, I won’t buy nvidia until they release an open-source card” because that is the only way to put pressure on vendors to provide real support for their hardware in linux.

Quite unlikely. For most people, a computer is merely a tool of work/convenience. I doubt enough people would engage themselves for the openness of drivers. The movement would need the help of the average user. Unfortunately, I doubt the cause rank high in his priorities. I am aware that europeans are better “engaged” in social causes, still…

My take? Not until there is a serious competitor showing up with open-source drivers or supporting proprietary drivers becomes too much of an hassle.

No, it does not, “belong”, in linux, that’s what FOSS is and for FOSS to remain FOSS it must discourage non-FOSS at all costs even, yes to it’s own temporary detriment for FOSS solutions will replace non-FOSS eventually and all will be for the general benefit in the end. Should people be able to add it if they so desire? Ok if they must but realize it does not advance the cause and fasting is good for the soul on all levels, even software.

If I were selling computers with Linux pre-installed, do you think I could get away with saying “Oh by the way, since believe in complete open source, I didn’t install the closed source drivers for your fancy nvidia card in there. So you won’t be able to play any 3D games, or use any 3D screensavers without it being incredibly slow. But hey, you’re using a completely open source and free operating system”

They would look at me like I was a moron and say “Aren’t the nvidia drivers provided for free by nVidia, since am buying their hardware?”

They would be right. Normal (sane) people don’t care if they have proprietary software, in fact most people welcome it, because let’s face it OPEN SOURCED SOFTWARE WILL NOT FILL EVERYONE’S NEEDS. Some people may need Maya, that’s not open source, yet we still see people saying it must be all free.

Hardware support is the most important advantage of any distribution, and if they’re not going to FULLY support all the hardware that they can, that’s just stupid.

There’s no need to repeat, I understood you the first time. Saying it over and over won’t make it true.

Simply put, I disagree with your assessment that this constitutes a significant roadblock to Linux adoption. I’ve yet to see you come up with any evidence or convincing argument to support this theory.

if ATI or Nvidia were to ship a version of the Linux kernel with their proprietary drivers built in, and not offer the source to the modifications that they made – would that be OK? Or would it be in violation of the GPL?

It would in fact be a violation of copyright law. The GPL permits redistribution of IP only if certain conditions are met, and linking or combining with proprietary modules is not permitted.

Not that it is not the act of combining GPLed and proprietary code that is illegal, rather it is the redistribution of that combination that constitutes a violation of copyright.

Offering binary modules that operate in kernel space really is no different, as far as I see it.

It’s quite different, actually, as I explained above. One is legal, the other one isn’t.

Free software developers maintain and develop the kernel. You can whine all you like, redefine freedom all you like, and argue about your rights all you want. What matters, however, is what the kernel developers want. And so far, they want the kernel and all modules that link to it to remain free software. Quite frankly, they don’t really give a shit about your convenience, perhaps you are mistaking them for Apple or Microsoft.

Either you didn’t aware or were being ingorant, when you buy ATI/Nvidia card, there is also windows driver CD in the box.

Really? What if I buy a used card? What if I lose my CD and need to reinstall?

“Out-of-the-box” means that it installed at the same time as the OS, not separately. We’re not actually talking about the video card’s box…

Mind you, there’s nothing preventing the video card manufacturers to put the Linux driver on the CD as well – and in fact I’m sure some already do. However, that’s the manufacturer’s responsibility, and that still wouldn’t make it “out-of-the-box.”

But for linux driver, often you must download it yourself and hack the kernel to load the driver.

“Hack the kernel”? Hardly. The NVIDIA installer is a straightforward executable file, just like the ATI installer. And, if you’re using Ubuntu, you can have it installed through the EasyUbuntu tool.

That said, it’s highly debatable that using a CD to install a driver is simpler or more user-friendly than downloading it from the Internet. That’s really a matter of personal preference, not fact.

“Out-of-the-box” means that it installed at the same time as the OS, not separately. We’re not actually talking about the video card’s box…

If an OS must provide drivers for all possible out of the box, a full DVD or even HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will not enough for the installation disk. It is make more sense if a computer/laptop is preinstalled for specific hardware, thus only need to provide certain drivers, e.g. Dell, Lenovo, etc. I heard a pre-installed linux laptop, but may be it’s for geeks’ consumption only.

Untrue. In practice, most hardware uses a fairly standard set of hardware APIs with some minor differences. In fact, you could easily fit the drivers for every commercially available piece of hardware on a single CD and still have room for other stuff.

It’s true that a driver disk for Windows might install 10-100M of software when you load the driver, but what’s necessary to actually support the hardware is only a few Kbytes. Linux does a better job than Windows of generalizing hardware in this respect.

And so far, they want the kernel and all modules that link to it to remain free software.

I don’t think that kernel developers all feel that way, and in any case it’s irrelevant, because users CAN combine the kernel with non-free, proprietary modules if they want. They can do so easily and legally, so really I fail to see what all the brouhaha is about.

If an OS must provide drivers for all possible out of the box, a full DVD or even HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will not enough for the installation disk.

Actually, you’re wrong. Drivers don’t take that much disk space, and Linux distributions have traditionally included all available ones on their first install CD (proprietary drivers being the exception, of course).

It is make more sense if a computer/laptop is preinstalled for specific hardware, thus only need to provide certain drivers, e.g. Dell, Lenovo, etc.

Of course. Pre-installing the OS just makes sense, unfortunately not many OEMs have offered Linux so far. It used to be that they couldn’t, or Microsoft would have retaliated by cutting off their Windows ssupply (thus depriving them of most of their income).

I conditionally agree with you. I find it really difficult to swallow that a group can proclaim that Linux is open and free, as well as chant one of the most attractive things is that you can customise the system if it doesn’t do exactly what you want, but then be so against allowing people the choice of adopting non-free or non-open software.

The position of the FSF is not that people shouldn’t be allowed to choose non-free or non-open software. By claiming this you are misrepresenting their position. They are not against choice, i.e. taking away people’s rights, rather they promote one of these choices.

It really seems to be a contradiction of mindsets.

Not really. One can be for freedom of speech and yet advocate a position. Advocating a position doesn’t mean you want to silence opposing viewpoints, it means you want to convince other people to join your point in view (as opposed to using coercitive measures).

I do think however that compiling the drivers directly into the kernel would be a confusion of licensing and IP but that shouldn’t prohibit people loading the drivers as a seperate entity.

As is exactly the case now. Of course it’s a minor annoyance for users – I’d rather have 3D ATI drivers included in my kernel package when I update it, but that’s not legally possible. As usual with free software, simple workarounds have developed around this annoyance.

It seems to me that in this particular instance the adoption of Linux distributions is being (or could be) hampered by the bothering of upholding to the strictest degree of what some believe Linux is about.

However, no one’s going to tell you what you can or can’t do with your software for your personal use. I’ve always used Linux with proprietary NVIDIA or ATI drivers, and I don’t feel like I’m any less of a Linux advocate. Just ask sappyvcv, he’ll tell you how enthusiastic I am about it… 🙂

I guess that’s also the point. If Linux is meant to be so open and free (from constraint) then why on earth would you want to restrict people from being able to experience it to the fullest?

No one is talking of restricting anyone. Purists can argue their case, and it is their right, just like you and me have the right to disagree. There aren’t, however, any restriction on how someone can use the software. That’s the beauty of open source and free software.

Just because Stallman doesn’t think you should use proprietary software means that he would support making free software mandatory. There’s a huge difference between the two positions, I hope you can see it.

Perhaps, but I would have thought a proper cohesive way to move forward would have been unity. To me one of the so-called benefits of open source software is also its detriment – fragmentation – making the job of developers more difficult.

I really find it difficult to understand the logic behind having the same piece of software in more than one fork of compatibility just for the sake of having to support multiple “variations” of what is almost the same OS.

Come on people, with so many linux distros, WHY must they ALL be the same! They should do what THEY want. Therefore, with so many distros, We should have distros with and distros without proprietary software. Why shouldn’t they? does the liscence disallow anyone to mix different liscenced software? Afaik you could just use multiple liscences.

I understand that both Nvidia and ATI are trying to protect their intellectual property (I feel dirty just typing that), and agree with their stances to some extent. But, the reality is is that these drivers are running deep in the GPL’ed kernel territory – which is exactly where they should not be if they are proprietary and not free software.

But issues pertaining to THEIR IP has nothing to do with the issue; the issue is with the IP they have licenced from third parties, and those third parties unwilling to allow ATI and Nvidia to open up their drivers.

Quite frankly, the graphics market is down to a duopoly between ATI vs. Nvidia; both of them are off on different paths and approaches, so even if both ‘opened and exposed their bits’, neither side would benefit.

But like I said, the issue isn’t with ATI and Nvidia, but with the IP they’ve licenced; I’m sure if ATI and Nvidia owned every piece of IP sitting in their driver, they would opensource it tomorrow and lower their costs for support on alternative operating systems.

Both have sufficient volume to counter any so-called ‘loss in secret sauce’; and couple that with marketing by ATI and Nvidia; “gotta get a genuine ATI/Nvidia graphics card!” plus the likes of Dells aversion of not using anything from ‘big names’ makes their business future, under a completely disclosed environment, safe.

Besides, the ATI and Nvidia proprietary drivers, frankly, are not that great. I will grant you that as far as 3d acceleration goes they blow the pants of the drivers that come with a standard Linux distro, but they can be buggy, are slow to support brand spanking new hardware, and generally don’t support older video cards either.

Well, I think the bigger problem, is that those of us in the OSS community also get peeved from the point of view that there is a bug, we could possibly fix the bug in a matter of a few hours, but instead we’re at the mercy of Nvidia/ATI driver release cycle – which you could say is ‘giving up control’ over ones computer; as for me, I find the 2D accelerated drivers included with Xorg sufficient for what I need to do; they’re snappy and fairly reliable.

So think twice before you say, “OOHHH.. I don’t care! Give me binary-only so I can use my shiny new nvidia card.” We should instead say, “No, I won’t buy nvidia until they release an open-source card” because that is the only way to put pressure on vendors to provide real support for their hardware in linux.<?i>

The fact is, it isn’t just that simple; what about me using FreeBSD? should I be left out in the cold? Lets compare; you have FreeBSD which is a since to maintain for given that it has a stable API, stable compiler for longer periods than Linux etc. The problem of bad hardware support isn’t just a linux problem, but a problem for all those who use alternative operating systems.

As for boycotting Nvidia/ATI or some other company, it’ll make little inroads because as end users we only make up a small percentage compared to the over 100million PC’s that are pre-loaded with Windows and equiped with the latest and greatest video cards.

The alternative is to create an opensource graphics card; possibly using an existing, already opened up graphics specification – say the Matrox G550, as a starting point, then work up from there; but it would require major sponsorship by Novell, Red Hat, SUN and other players to get it through to production and a usable product.

I don’t mind Open Source software as it can drive some interesting projects.

What I do mind is somehow not using proprietary drivers is not equal to freedom.

A lot of people on here are like hippies. They take this freedom idea too far.

Who cares if you have a choice between having an open source driver or a proprietary driver, just use the damn thing.

I love having freedom in the States to do stuff, but at the same time I think this F/OSS freedom is just a little extreme.

In Windows I don’t have a choice of having an open source driver. But you know what? I don’t care. That mentality can waste a ton of time and I would rather be creating applications that matter instead of wasting my time and money doing something that ATI and Nvidia already have done and let them figure out the bugs.

This is an example of how I feel like the political ranting of Linux and F/OSS waste a lot of time on something that does not matter. It’s all politics instead of something real.

Politics are stupid, its a waste of time. Making an OS easier to use and usable in the first place is more important.

Computing freedom is clearly way overrated and you freedom freaks should have been in the 60’s.

Even on Windows you have freedom, no maybe not to the extreme of making your own drivers, but that is just redneck dumb and a waste of time.

Why not go forward 12 steps and not back 12 using the mentality of politics.

At the end of the day politics gains nothing and all this extreme freedom talk gains nothing.

I am not trying to troll, but people on this board have to get some reality.

Well, hell, nothing wrong with being comfortable in your worldview I guess.

Here’s the reality for developers and other computer users who don’t have a whole lot of money, and like their PCs and other hardware to work until it drops, then drop-in a replacement. In the world of proprietary software and drivers, there’s *no* guarantee this will be possible.

Say Nvidia bit the dust tomorrow. No more support, no more new Forceware, nada. Your PC doesn’t cease working instantly, but next time the OS kernel (be it Linux, BSD or WinNT) gets a bugfix or security upgrade, your last-ever Nvidia drivers just might not work any more. So it’s time to either cough up for a new GPU or make do with a frozen-in-time OS.

These hippies you see everywhere (?) don’t engage in politics just for its own sake, or to seem more important as you seem to suggest. They just don’t trust corporate driver/software vendors not to leave them in the lurch at some point. If you have that trust, then good for you.

Open sourcing hardware drivers is very importent to me. I grew up in the microchip era and I want to know what’s inside; Intel? Trade secrets are a bunch of crap. When someone trades something to me there should be NO secrets between us.

I do not trust something in my home that I don’t know what’s in it. No, I dont trust them to keep me ‘safe.’

I don’t want Lock In so repairmen can only replace the chips by giving money to the original company and not being able to repair the chips themselves. It’s creating a dumbed down society. This creates much higher prices. How long have we had the same speed chips smaller and smaller at the same prices?

“But issues pertaining to THEIR IP has nothing to do with the issue; the issue is with the IP they have licenced from third parties, and those third parties unwilling to allow ATI and Nvidia to open up their drivers.”

And pray tell, how does that other IP prevent the creation of a fully documented and open interface?

Noone is asking them to open source their drivers, just that their hardware has open and documented interfaces. If they have some IP in their drivers to do clever things isnt of interest.

This discussion goes to highlight one of the problems with the FSF. They’re all for providing you with freedom, but if you want to exercise that freedom you have to do it on their terms. Freedom on someone elses terms doesn’t sound like freedom to me.

Why should it matter if the ATI/nVidia drivers are closed source? As long as they comply with the driver API then you should be free to use them as you see fit. The average user couldn’t care less if the source code for the drivers is available. It’s this kind of attitude that stops Linux making much headway into the desktop market.

Perhaps the FSF and RMS should focus their efforts more on getting the Hurd out the door instead of interfering in a kernel that isn’t developed by them…

You should read more on the subject. It’s extemely difficult or costly to develop for closed hardware. It goes against the open source business model of recycled software from the community or others who don’t have that much money to fix things. Where is the innovation?

Why do you want some large corperation to control and do everthing for you? Repairmen and startups need to work as well not just some large company.

To be fair maybe ‘trade secrets’ are not that bad but they need to be resonable.

Obviously products like food used to be more local. One thing the government did was ‘open up’ food somewhat with forcing companies to list ingrediants. I am not sure how to protect trade secrets for chips though.

Religion doesn’t need a God, it needs a license agreement. The insanity of some people who could believe that using proprietary software (which in this case they’re talking about closed source software) along with the Linux kernel is just plain scary.

Unethical is stealing an old lady’s purse. Ethical would be to beat up the thief and give back the purse.

Unethical would be to use the GNU/Linux environment to hack into the bank accounts of middle-class people and give the money to yourself. Ethical would be to hack into the bank account of Bill Gates and give out his money to all the people who are over charged for their copy of Windows.

Mixing software of different licenses has nothing to do with ethics. The legality of it may come into question, but politics and ethics should never be brought into how someone uses their software.

I propose that from now on Religions should also have a EULA. After all, much like the GPL, there are many interpretations of the ‘Holy’ books. Zealots for every cause tend to act and think the same way, whether it’s for God, a software license, or for the Pilsbury Dough Boy.

There’s a certain insanity that takes all of the rationality out of people when they start talking about something that they believe in strongly. With the GPL, people start thinking that they should use ONLY GPL software, and everything else should be considered Satan, and not free. This is absurd. If your ‘freedom’ is limited to only using GPL, then it’s not very free, now is it?

Freedom (as far as computers go) should simply be that you can do with your computer whatever the hell you want, as long as it doesn’t affect others. Truly the only time you can lose your freedom over your computer, is when you are forced to install software that you don’t want/need. When people say it’s unethical to use ‘free’ software with ‘non-free’ software, then they are entirely stupid. Obviously people who release their software under a ‘free’ license WANT PEOPLE TO USE IT! In fact, when people SELL their software, they still want people to USE IT!. I bet you if you asked Linus personally if he thought it was ok if you ran Postal 2 under Linux he’d probably just say “Why the f*** should I care?” He’s not going to say, “No, you can’t because it’s not open source, and you’re a bad little monkey for thinking that I worked and created the Linux kernel just so you could go around in a 3D rendered world and urinate on people.”

I don’t know Linus personally, but from seeing some of his posts on mailing lists, I know he doesn’t care pretty much what you do with it, that’s why he licensed it under GPL. As long as you follow the GPL (distribution with source, add back any modifications that are beneficial to others, etc.) Let’s face it this argument is a lame debate that really only belongs to those who are zealots. While you COULD run a completely open sourced Desktop system, and only used the Gimp, or Abiword or Open Office, Evolution, etc. Doesn’t mean that you HAVE to.

I think that is enough said. Anyone who disagrees with me, I will stab you in the jaw with a fork. (Dane Cook reference, yes, I’m tired, I worked all night and my brain is wired strange, but at least I know that this argument is insane. We can smell our own )

Leech

Edit: Now that I think about it, Linus would probably say “Well, I DID in fact create Linux so that you could walk around in a 3D world and urinate on people. But I wanted it to be a giant penguin walking around instead of a guy in a trenchcoat.”

You put words in the mouth of Linus, brought God into the debate, exonerated theft, and posted a huge number of words, but you never touched on the technical issue–the reason we oppose proprietary drivers. Get some sleep, leech.

I find it really difficult to swallow that a group can proclaim that Linux is open and free, as well as chant one of the most attractive things is that you can customise the system if it doesn’t do exactly what you want, but then be so against allowing people the choice of adopting non-free or non-open software.

They (I assume you are referring to the Linux kernel developers) DO allow people the choice of adopting non-free or non-open software. They just don’t care about how convenient it is for companies like NVidia and ATI to provide Linux drivers.

Just because something is Open-source does not automatically make it “better” then propietary. Being propietary software does not automatically mean the software is “worse the OSS. You can have good and bad of both types of software. The advantage is if an OSS program sucks it can be fixed but only if someone cares enough. But neither type implies a better quality. Just a different license. Afterall for Windows anyways you have the standard nVidia and ATi drivers and then you have some modified versions of them like DNA Drivers, Omega, etc, all based off the propietary drivers, which shows that you do have the ability to make propietary software better.

Anyways to the main debate. I feel that the solution is simple and pretty much echos what a lot of people have already stated. If the end user wants to install it then let them install propietary software. DO not block it and do not automatically include it into the kernel. If the person wants a total FOSS system then let them use what they want.

Oh yeah on the comment/question on intel video cards, they make built in motherboard cards. in fact they are the largest graphic card market leader simpyl because practically every PC bought in a store or laptop bought with an intel chip has an intel built in video card on an intel motherboard. They are considered god awful pieces of crap whose only use comes from people who simply surf the net. When it comes to gaming or workstation cards (which is the only time nVidia and ATi cards are probably actually ever really needed) Intel cards are horrible. They were and still are a joke (and calling them extreme graphics made them a bigger joke especially when a lot of companies kept saying things like “you will enjoy state of the art video games on the state of the art Intel Extreme Graphics Card with a whopping 128mb of memory (which we forgot to tell you come from your main system ram meaning you get less ram now yay)”) anyways So yeah thats my comment/rant on intel video cards/adapters.

1. Will the proprietary drivers really enhance the experience of “out-of-box”?

I don’t think so.

2. Will the drivers that go to open source bring more qualification? Saying ATI or via?

maybe, it will give more feeling of freedom, but not the quilification I am afraid.

So I think the keypoint is CHOICE. Do the hardware ventors have the choice? (if there Linux kernel refuses the non-GPL compatible drivers, does it matter if giving a interface, is it technically difficult?) Do the end users have the choice (if we just can’t make use of ALGLX with ATI proprietary driver under Linux)?

I like open source and use Archlinux daily, but I also expect I can get a 3d accelerated desktop more easily.

nVidia drivers I’ve had no problem with. So far, they are the only ones I’ve needed to bother using. If others were of similar quality, and ‘just worked’, I would use them without complaint.

However, as stated a few times already, many are not of good quality, or not even there. Both things hirt Linux desktop adoption. In fact, I was almost ready to go using my Linux desktop instead of Windows–change the dominant OS around. Why didn’t I? Hardware support, as usual (mouse, in this case, not wanting to go above 400 cpi).

If it works well, I don’t care if it is closed or open. I like the choice with FOSS. I like the discoverability of FOSS. I like the communities of FOSS. I like the quality of FOSS (which often surpasses what I can pay someone for!). I just don’t like things not working properly.

It is getting there, and getting there, and getting there…but until the hardware vendors decide, on a large scale, to actually support Linux, we’re going to have these debates, one side complain about the other, and still not be using our computers any better. Binary or source, or even just opening up some specs, wanting to support something other than Windows and OS X does not seem to be on many companies’ agendas.

Does closed source software belong in the kernel? That is for me, as a user, to decide; on my PC, where getting it in there will not break any meaningful contract that I am aware of.